Raghuram Rajan blew investors away with his self-assurance and ambitious plans to shake up India’s cossetted financial sector in his first speech as central bank governor. The stock market and rupee rallied in response.

Much of that reaction, however, may have been due to the messenger, rather than the message. Mr. Rajan’s predecessors have said similar things and not all of them have resulted in action. And some of the ideas touted by the governor aren’t entirely new.

“What he said wasn’t very different from what other people have talked about. The real challenge for him will be to accomplish all these goals,” said Hatim Broachwala, a senior research analyst at Karvy Stock Broking Ltd. in Mumbai.

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Some aspects of Mr. Rajan’s speech:

1) Branch licensing: Mr. Rajan said the RBI would allow Indian banks to open branches without seeking its permission. “Branching will be free for all scheduled domestic banks but the poorly managed,” Mr. Rajan said in his inaugural speech. Over the last few years, the RBI has already been giving local banks more freedom to open branches. At present, banks only need permission to open new branches in the biggest cities.

2) New banks: Mr. Rajan set an informal deadline for handing out licenses to set up new banks, which was up until now an open-ended process. He said he would issue new bank permits by January 2014 or soon after, slightly sooner than expected, in a process he said would be transparent.

A panel headed by former RBI Governor Bimal Jalan would assess the applications after a preliminary screening by the RBI, Mr. Rajan said. He also cited a recent RBI discussion paper, which called for more bank licenses and the conversion of large cooperative banks into commercial lenders.

3) Loan defaults by companies: Mr. Rajan took a hard line on companies that default on loans. “Promoters [founders of companies] do not have the divine right to stay in charge regardless of how badly they mismanage their enterprise, nor do they have the right to use the banking system to recapitalize their failed ventures,” Mr. Rajan said. This view is consistent with the RBI’s recent steps to make it tougher to restructure loans. Restructuring is the practice of reducing interest rates or extending the repayment period of a loan to make it easier for a borrower to repay. The RBI has previously said controlling shareholders of companies whose loan accounts have been restructured will have to personally guarantee that the loans will be repaid.

4) Lazy banking: Indian banks are required by the RBI to invest 23% of their deposits in liquid securities, mainly government bonds, which is known as the statutory liquidity ratio, or SLR. This requirement reduces the amount of funds available to banks to make loans. Mr. Rajan said there is a “need to reduce the requirement for banks to invest in government securities in a calibrated way to what is strictly needed from a prudential perspective.”

Duvvuri Subbarao, the previous RBI governor had similar views on the matter. In July last year, after the RBI cut the SLR to 23% from 24%, Mr. Subbarao said the move was in line with the RBI’s long-term objective to reduce the SLR.

Most banks hold government bonds in excess of the requirement, which has earned them the epithet of ‘lazy bankers,’ among analysts.

5) Approach to trading: Analysts say the RBI considers any foreign-exchange trading that is not designed to meet the needs of importers, exporters or others with foreign-currency exposure is speculation. The central bank has blamed speculation for contributing to the rupee’s fall and recently tightened restrictions on trading in currency derivatives.

Mr. Rajan on Wednesday said that banning position-taking would not help create ample liquidity in the market, nor, he added, would mandating trading based only on well-defined legitimate needs.

Under him, the RBI and the securities regulator SEBI would work together to “steadily and surely liberalize our markets, as well as restrictions on investment and position-taking,” Mr. Rajan said.

As a first step, the RBI on Wednesday gave importers and exporters greater flexibility to cancel and re-book contracts to buy or sell a foreign currency at a future date at a specified price. Traders typically cancel existing forward contracts when a better rate is available.

–Nupur Acharya contributed to this article.

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